Chapter Text
It started with a joke.
Bix, who preferred to be called Faceless HYDRA Goon WS2500 just because, had only worked in the secret underground lab in god-forsaken-nowhere for five weeks when the announcement was made. An announcement that shouldn't have affected her in any way, beyond a very vague sense of unease perhaps. Certainly not a quiet meltdown in the ladies room because Bix didn't do meltdowns.
It was completely ridiculous, really. She had completed all background and psychological check-ups, excelled in every mandatory training exercise up to date, and yet she still felt woefully unprepared for her first encounter with the infamous Winter Soldier.
Then again, this was the Winter Soldier they were talking about. The world’s most infamous assassin. HYDRA’s most feared and conveyed weapon. The man—if such a simple term could even be considered worthy of describing everything the Winter Soldier represented—who took physically impossible shots like other people downed tequila and still hit the bull’s eye. Every. Single. Time.
It didn’t hurt that he looked damn hot in leather either.
So, yes. She might or might not drum her fingers against the surface of her table more often than strictly necessary. Sue a girl for getting a little excited about finally meeting the man behind the legend.
Of course reality just had to rain on Bix’ happy little fangirl parade and prove the saying ‘You should never meet your idol’ right. It took less than half a minute of staring at the scarily blank face of the Winter Soldier to realise just how appropriate the word 'weapon' in reference to him really was.
If the unresponsive Asset with the dead eyes could even be classified as a ‘him’.
Bix had spent the last four years ruthlessly moving up the ranks of an international terrorist organisation. She’d committed enough crimes to know she’d never be able to look her best friend in the eyes ever again—not that it mattered, Vic was gone—but that vacant expression on what would have otherwise been an attractive face still sent unpleasant shivers down her spine.
It was disturbing, plain and simple.
And it surprised Bix. Not that HYDRA was capable of such unspeakable acts, because that wasn’t surprising at all. In many ways Bix was still fresh meat, was still a recruit, still not fully trusted—because this was HYDRA, and trust only got you killed—but she wasn’t as blind or silly as her strawberry blonde hair and bright pink nails suggested. Bix had no illusions about the ugly garbage, hiding away in the organisation’s seedy underbelly. She was fully aware of the crimes, the torture, glossed over by white lab coats and professional faces.
The problem wasn’t ignorance. Bix had never been good at keeping her nose out of stuff she wasn’t supposed to know. The problem was that those terrible experiments and unspeakable actions, the sheer inhumanity of it all, didn’t bother her as much as it ought to. The knowledge didn’t weight down on her, didn’t eat at her. Instead it rolled off her skin like rain pelted off unrelenting glass, nothing but a mild inconvenience at best.
That was who Bix was, who she’d always been. Long before HYDRA had ever gotten its grubby hands on her, and had tried to break something that was already twisted beyond recognition.
No, what really surprised Bix was that, for the first time since Vic, she cared.
Not enough to go all Karate Kid on the other underlings to save the man, but enough to cause an uncomfortable, clenching sensation to rise in the pit of her stomach. One that reminded Bix dangerously of guilt.
She wasn’t sure if she liked it or not.
“We have to reprogram him,” the Winter Soldier’s handler announced, thankfully entirely unaware of Bix’ internal revelation. One that would probably get her killed.
His words gave her something to focus on at least. Technically Bix was just a lowly tech assistant at the moment but this was exactly the kind of situation she was trained for.
“Again?” the head tech and her direct superior groaned with an odd mixture of frustration and resignation, even as he skimmed the files Bix reflexively handed him. They were thick, impressively so, and almost certainly incomplete. HYDRA was a bureaucratic nightmare on a good day but they weren’t stupid.
Information regarding the Winter Soldier Project was given out on a very strict need-to-know basis. It wasn’t a fool-proof system, otherwise nobody would even know of the existence of said project, but it had kept them afloat for decades, so there was that. Even Bix, who was being trained to become one of the soldier’s future techs, had barely scratched the surface of what essentially amounted to a decades long research project.
“Tell me about it,” the handler whined, looking remarkably like a haggard mother in the face of her spoiled offspring's impending tantrum. Which was a disturbing mental image, thank you very much brain. “Seventy fucking years and catching sight of a Captain fucking America poster still fucks with the god damn code! I swear, this guy has a thicker head than even Stark does. They’re like, made for each other or something.”
“What?” Bix blurted, caught off-guard by the lighthearted smalltalk, before her common sense could remind her that drawing attention was never a good thing where HYDRA was concerned. Whether you were ally or foe mattered little.
The handler jerked, as though he had forgotten that she was in the same room. It was odd, careless even, and made Bix wonder how this man could possibly survive being in charge of the Winter Soldier. In a rare show of self-restraint, she managed to keep that particular thought to herself.
“Think about it,” the handler, she couldn’t remember his name for the life of her, recovered fast, she had to give him that. He also appeared completely unbothered by her presence, continued his jumbled explanation with wild gestures and a slightly manic gleam in his eyes, “the assassin and the self-made hero. It’s perfect! The public would eat it right up. Hell, might even push Stony off the OTP spot too, and god knows I’m getting sick of that shit spamming my feed!”
Her boss barked a rough laugh but Bix couldn’t help herself.
“What?” she asked again, less off-balance this time and a lot more incredulous. She didn’t understand half the words the handler had used, but had this man really just indicated the possibility of a romantic relationship between the Winter Soldier and Tony Stark? Or had she missed something?
Was this supposed to be some sort of practical joke?
See, a small voice in the back of her head crowed in triumph, this is why you prefer computers over humans. Nothing they do or say makes a lick of sense.
Apparently though the time for bad jokes and explanations were over.
“Just google it,” her boss snapped, thick eyebrows furrowing over narrowed eyes.
He gestured for the Winter Soldier—the Asset—to be placed on the monstrosity of a chair that Bix had until now successfully pretended not to notice.
Then, seemingly recalling her tendency to take his words more literal than he intended, he tacked on an impatient, “After we’ve finished the re-programming.”
As the other techs around her began to pull up more files and data collections on their monitors, Bix shrugged off any pointless thoughts about Hollywood romances and got back to work. Because computer codes were something she understood, something Bix could make sense of.
And in another world, that would have been the end of it.
*
The re-programming had went off without any of the usual complications Bix had been told to expect. She went home at half past five, over an hour earlier than usual. Right on time to get her mother's call, the one she usually avoided expertly. To distract herself from those thoughts she switched on the TV. Where Tony Stark’s smiling face greeted her.
Google it.
It was a combination of all of those things and none of those things that had Bix reaching for her laptop, fingers itching to distract herself from the too many questionable emotions this god awful day had awoken within her. Mind begging for a relief from the world she cared too little about to pay attention to.
That was how Bix the faceless HYDRA goon discovered tumblr.
*
The next time Bix met the Winter Soldier—Asset—her team had been called in as a secondary security measure only. Something had gone wrong during the last mission and the Asset’s left side had been damaged, bad enough for the meds to be called in. Considering his abnormal healing factor that was quite an impressive feat.
The techs were on standby, in case the injury triggered something unfavourable or some parts of the programming needed to be rewritten. No one was willing to take any risks where the Winter Soldier was concerned, even with a broad-shouldered man with dark red hair keeping him—the Asset—compliant at all times.
Bix didn’t ask about the fate of the previous handler.
*
Stony turned out to be a ship name, ‘ship’ meaning a (more often than not romantic) pairing of two characters or persons, and was short for Steve Rogers and Tony Stark.
Bix, well. Liked it would probably be a bit over the top, all things considered. Sure, the fanart was pretty hot (and so were quite a few of the fanfictions she stumbled across) but at the end of the day Steve Rogers was still Captain America and she was still a faceless HYDRA goon who liked staying alive too much to start a fan club for the archenemy.
That didn’t stop her from embracing the Avengers fandom with an enthusiasm that bordered on manic obsession though. Nor did it stop her from starting her own blog to share countless reasons about why Captain America would never be good enough for her Tony with the rest of the world.
*
The Winter Soldier snapped.
There was no known trigger that had been activated, not even an emotionally charged, volatile situation. It happened in the lab, during a routine maintenance check-up. Two of the techies were testing and confirming the functionality of the metal arm, a third one was cataloguing the damage the Asset had suffered during its latest mission, to be cross-referenced later on.
Bix was in charge of inventory, which was really just a glorified way of saying that it was her job to keep track of all the weapons the Wint- Asset had been assigned. Down to the last fucking bullet. Some days it felt like she was playing Q to an emotionally stunted, out-of-control psychotic James Bond. Really, this was not what she had signed up for.
It was tedious and boring and-
There was a sudden hiss from one of the techies, just as Bix counted the guns assembled before her one final time—and really, how do you lose a half-automatic machine gun in the ladies room?—and then the Winter Soldier moved.
It wasn’t a fight, could barely even be classified as an attack. There was no time for screams, no time for anything more than a startled, half-choked gasp before it was over again. Then the Winter Soldier stood, fluid and terrifying, amid a mess of broken bodies, and all Bix could do was stare.
Around her, people scrambled out of the way, some fleeing the room, another hitting the alarm button. One of the newer techs even grabbed a gun and fired, and honestly, Bix couldn’t decide if the kid was incredibly brave or incredibly stupid. It didn’t stop the Winter Soldier from throwing him bodily against a wall.
Bix doubted the kid would get up again.
It was only when the Winter Soldier stalked towards his next victim, a tech named Roderick Gluss she’d been working with for almost two months now, that Bix remembered the stand down order.
It was a code that had been designed specifically for these kinds of occurrences. A catch phrase that would cause the Winter Soldier to stand down immediately and acknowledge whoever had spoken the words as his new handler.
The most recent code was ‘In winter’s chilling grasp’. Bix personally suspected that this was the reason HYDRA agents weren’t allowed to have a sense of humour. It just never went well, always ended up embarrassing everyone involved.
Said code was also approximately four levels above her security clearance. Bix wondered if it would be worth intervening and revealing some of the true extent of knowledge she had gathered to her superiors. It wasn’t too late yet. She could still save her colleague.
She didn’t.
Help arrived half a minute later. They were too late to save Gluss but successfully subdued the rogue Winter Soldier before he could cause any more damage.
When the dust settled and the re-programming began, Bix accepted her promotion graciously.
*
Somewhere in between the high and low curve that was the Ironhawk fandom, Bix came to a startling realisation. For some reason (and really, there wasn’t a rational explanation for this, she hadn’t even met any of these guys in real life) Tony Stark had become her favourite Avenger.
She had no idea how the arrogant bastard with the Gryffindor fetish had managed it. The guy wasn’t even an official Avenger for god’s sake—though the fandom definitely didn’t care. If anything it had force-adopted Stark with all the stubborn righteousness of a five year old child convinced that Santa was real, and refused to let him go again like the secret super villains all fans held dear to their hearts—yet there was no denying the truth.
Allowing a self-despairing groan to escape, Bix settled back into her couch and resolved to call her mom. Clearly she was in need of some actual human interaction.
Just one last chapter, and then she would get the phone.
Totally.
*
Bix stopped trying to remember the names and general appearance of the Winter Soldier’s handlers. They never lasted long enough to gain any influence beyond the power their position already offered them.
Besides Bix had yet to meet one she wasn’t glad to see gone.
*
The problem with loving a specific person instead of a pairing was that you tumbled from one pairing into the next one at a heartbeat—and every one of them could take your breath away.
Okay. Almost every one.
That Stane/Stark fic the other day? No.
Just-
No.
*
Another day, another incident, another re-programming.
It didn’t make much sense in Bix’ opinion. The Winter Soldier’s—Asset’s, god damn it, when would her stupid mind finally accept that that was all it was?—eyes were as dead as they had always been, his movements smooth but mechanical. He had hesitated though, or so the newest handler claimed, and hesitating wasn’t part of the program.
So.
Back to the workshop it was.
*
He had been right.
That stupid, blabbering, long dead fool of an ex-Winter Soldier-handler had been right.
The Winter Soldier and Tony Stark were totally ship-able. Like made-for-each-other, star-crossed-lover ship-able. There was just so much potential! How was it that nobody else saw this? Besides the fact that the Winter Soldier's existence wasn't common knowledge, that was. And yet Bix couldn't help it. She had seen the light and now it was impossible to unsee it. The possibilities were all-encompassing, mind-numbing, beautiful. The angst—oh god, the Angst—but also the fluffiness and jesuschristhowhadshenotnoticedthisbefore?
IronSoldier was meant to be.
Well, maybe not IronSoldier. That sounded a little off. Starkoldier? Wintony? WinterIron? WinterMan?
WinterIron.
The potential, all the endless possibilities such a simple word could carry. It drove Bix’ inner fangirl wild, and yet.
Bix ground her teeth. The mere thought that she had some arrogant HYDRA bastard to thank for this, the thought that this nameless asshole had been right all along- was unbearable.
But. WinterIron.
*
It was a mistake.
A single, stupid, honest to god mistake, caused by a toxic mixture of sleep deprivation, suppressed fangirling, stubbornness, pity and an almost suicidal urge to stick it to ‘the man’. It could have happened to anyone, really.
Fine, maybe not anyone.
See, re-programming the Winter Soldier was a routine exercise for Bix. Had been, even before Captain fucking America came out of the damn ice like a second Jesus and the whole world got swept up in the superhero hype again. Nowadays an unresponsive Asset being dragged into their lab by a borderline panicking handler was old news at best.
It just happened. And it was always, always the same.
Except this time it wasn’t.
Because this time, half-way through the tedious process of rattling off names and numbers and standing orders they had gone over a thousand times in the past two years, her supervisor left to get himself a cup of tea. He just- got up and left.
And suddenly, for the first time in her life, Bix found herself alone with the Winter Soldier.
A motionless Winter Soldier, freshly wiped and everything, but still. For a single moment Bix could almost feel a sense of impending doom teasing her already fraying nerves. Then she continued repeating the standard information about anyone HYDRA considered relevant that the Wi- Asset was supposed to know, like the well-trained drone she was.
“Hill, Maria. Status: alive. Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. Threat level: sufficient. Standing orders: Kill if encountered. Repeat."
It was a mind-numbing task that made Bix question every single time why in all these years of human experimentation the doctors had yet to find a way to leave those basic information intact during the wipe.
“Romanov, Natasha. Alias Black Widow. Status: alive. Avenger. Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. Threat level: substantial. Standing orders: Do not engage. Repeat."
She had asked once and had been treated to a four hour lecture about the complexity of brain cells and neurotransmitters that hadn't even answered her question.
Bix hadn’t asked again.
It wasn’t her place to ask questions anyway.
" Star-”
Bix paused. The funny thing was, she should have expected this. All the Avengers were on HYDRA’s list after all, and with good reasons too. But somehow she’d never actually thought this through, considered the implications of her day job and her favourite hobby intermingling like this.
“Stark, Anthony,” she repeated, fighting to keep her voice free of any traitorous inflections. She was a faceless HYDRA goon. She was above such pointless things like emotions.
She could do this. She was a grown woman for christ’s sake.
“Status: alive. CEO of Stark Industries. Consultant of the Avengers.”
Her voice evened out and Bix could feel her heart rate slow down again. Her mind had no room for guilt, internal conflicts or a rebelling conscience, could not allow for doubt and indecision to sink in and fester. It should be different, today. Rationally Bix knew that, knew that this was what society would expect from her.
But she didn't hesitate and it was so easy.
“Threat level: substantial.”
Because there had always been something twisted about her, inside her, years before cold-blooded murderers who pretended to save the world had rubbed her off whatever morality she might have otherwise gained. HYDRA had chosen its minion well.
“Standing orders: Priority Mission Alpha-One: Protect at all costs. Any collateral damage acceptable." Bix smiled, slow and bloodthirsty. "Repeat."
To be fair, HYDRA really should have known better than to hire the blonde girl with the perfectly done nails and the dead, blue eyes.